


Singing Down the World (The Apocalypse Refrain)

by escritoireazul



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Apocalypse, Community: apocalyptothon, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-18
Updated: 2009-07-18
Packaged: 2017-10-06 22:25:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/58373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escritoireazul/pseuds/escritoireazul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The country is coming apart at the seams and with the earthquakes come the end of the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Singing Down the World (The Apocalypse Refrain)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DarlingLisa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarlingLisa/gifts).



> Recipient: raggedy_edge in Apocalyptothon 2009  
> Request: Neither Giles nor Angel thought they would live to see this day. Bonus points for Giles singing and/or snark about Angel's brooding.

_February 2012_

Detroit was cold as hell just before the end of the world.

Faith shrugged deeper into her goose down jacket and flexed her toes in her boots. Two pairs of socks and heavy rubber soles and her feet were still going numb. She shifted her weight and squinted down the dark alley. The streets on either end were bright and she was pretty sure she would see anything coming.

She leaned against the wall. The coat protected her from the sharp bricks, even if it made sweat slick in her underarms while her elbows and knees froze. The scarf covering her mouth frosted over where her breath seeped through it.

Two weeks and she still hadn’t cleaned out all the vamp nests. Cleveland’s Hellmouth attracted enough stupid – or determined – vampires and demons to keep the Slayers-in-training busy, but the smarter monsters got out of town as soon as they’d set up home base.

Someone had to travel the country hunting down the ones on the run. Faith preferred working by herself on the road. She'd been down south for a year, but then the reports started coming in from the frozen north.

Detroit was a popular destination for weaker demons, maybe because it was a dying city. Powerful demons wanted a Hellmouth, or at least a city where there were riches to be had.

Fuck. Her mind was shutting down from the cold if she was so interested in figuring out the motivations of monsters.

She wrapped her glove-covered fingers around a thick stake, moved a little away from the wall, and widened her stance to ease a cramp in the back of her thigh.

Shadows, quick as a breath, skittered at the other end of the alley and a sharp smile twisted her mouth. Movement behind her and she ducked and grabbed the hand before it landed on her shoulder. In one smooth motion she flipped the vamp over her head and slammed him into the ground. One of his feet caught a pile of metal and sent pieces flying. So much for stealth, but with her blood up, she didn’t care.

Faith lunged down and slammed the stake home. The vamp disintegrated and she held her breath so the dust didn’t coat her tongue and throat. The other three rushed toward her. Smart enough to attack as a group. What were they doing in Detroit?

She shifted the stake to her left hand and squared off, ready to take them all on. Narrow alley, lots of darkness, and the thrill of the patrol riding her pulse. Exactly how she liked it.

Then, from beneath her, came a strange tremble.

Faith hesitated a second and the vamps were on her, one going for the stake, the other two straight for her throat. She spun around into a kick, trying to clear some space, and the ground trembled again. One of the vamps went down when her boot connected. Another grabbed her arm, but its claws merely tore strips from her coat. The third grabbed her shoulder and leered, its fangs stained, its breath fetid.

The whole world rocked, the buildings on either side of her groaning as the metal popped. The ground moved like water, in waves of shaking, and she stumbled away, momentarily free.

Earthquake. She’d spent enough time in California that she identified it before she consciously thought about it, but why the hell was the ground shaking _here_? She wasn’t on the coast.

Her heart clenched. Was there more to Detroit than she’d been told? Had she been sent here not to clean up after crappy demons but to face off with an open Hellmouth? Was she still so much of a fucking liability?

Metal pieces crashed around her and she darted out of the way, racing to make it to open ground. Another wave struck as she burst out of the alley. Two cars slammed together, their frames buckling beneath the impact, and then a third and a fourth piled up. Buildings tumbled down around her, concrete buckled and heaved, and the lights snapped off, leaving Faith in the darkness, listening to human screaming and the crash of metal, the music of the end of the world.

_August 2012_

It was goddamn cold in Louisiana. Just another sign of the end of the world. Fear sweat slicked Faith’s armpits and under her breasts and the backs of her knees, but the wind cut across any exposed skin and raised goose bumps.

She glanced at her watch; the second hand ticked down until the ground rumbled beneath her feet. Shake rattle and roll, baby, an earthquake just like clockwork.

The Mississippi gurgled and groaned, the water dark with dirt and trees and blood. It shifted in its banks and she watched, waited, but it didn’t turn in on itself. It hadn’t run backward for weeks. She hoped to never see that shit again.

Angel looked south along the river, staring off into something she couldn’t see. The past, likely. New Orleans lurked at the end of the line, but between what was and what had been stretched decades and miles and the end of the world.

The actual end of the world, not one of those averted apocalypses.

“My lord,” Giles huffed a little when he joined them. He was in good shape, better shape than he’d been before the earth started shaking, but he was getting older. He wasn’t a Slayer or a vampire. The long days and nights showed on him more than the rest of their team. “Is he brooding again?”

Faith bit the inside of her mouth but that didn’t stop her grin. Angel dragged his eyes away from the water slowly and then frowned at Giles.

“Completely brooding,” she agreed. He switched his frown to her and she put her hands on her hips and winked at him. “Totally brooding. That’s pretty much all he does, isn’t it?”

For a moment, she thought he was going to ignore them and turn back to the water and then he touched his hair self consciously. It was looking flat. Kinda hard to get the hair gel he liked best – or, you know, any at all – when the country was shaking apart.

“I was listening,” he said.

She bit her tongue hard enough to draw blood, a bright-sharp pain in her mouth, but managed not to ask. She was getting better at holding back her questions. He liked to drag things out, make them admit they wanted to know. That wasn’t her style.

Besides, Giles always asked. That was kind of his thing, even now, wanting to know what was going on, wanting to find out why, loving knowledge for its own sake, even though it was also pretty much the only way they could save the world.

It wasn’t looking like they’d be doing that this time.

Faith checked the stake tucked at the small of her back. They were so busy trying to figure out why the country was coming apart at the seams they didn’t spend a lot of time hunting monsters, but she got in a good slaying when she could. Or when she got bored, which happened a lot. Research, not a whole lot of fun. Even less so when they weren’t finding any damn answers.

Give her a good slay and lay instead and she’d be perfectly happy.

“Listening to what?” Giles asked, right on cue.

“The tectonic plates sound different. They’re grinding—oddly.”

“Oh god.” Faith flung back her head so her hair swished and stared at the night sky. It was too dark, the stars hidden by dust thrown up from the steady earthquakes. “More research.”

“Yes,” Angel’s smile was small but there. “More research.”

Research is their apocalyptic refrain.

#

Dust particles danced in the flickering firelight, miniature falling stars. Make a wish, but Faith had run out of wishes a long time ago.

Giles stroked his finger along his old guitar, the wood of it worn and rough, and soft notes rolled out, a smooth melody. Angel whistled the counter to it. He was surprisingly good. They both were, together. She never would have thought it possible.

His face half in shadows, half in light, Giles looked younger but worn thin, tempered by the fighting and the magic of his life.

“Two Angels,” Giles said suddenly. “I don’t know what to do with you both.”

“What?” Faith shook her head, tried to clear her thoughts.

“You’re brooding.”

“I’m not.” But she could hear the same bite to her tone that Angel had in his when accused. “I’m thinking.”

“And I’m listening.” The whistle picked up again.

“Where are your thoughts?”

“Sing a song of the end of the world.”

He raised his eyebrows. Normally she asked for anything but that.

The night settled more firmly around them even as darkness threaded toward dawn and the earth gathered itself to shake, rattle, and roll once more.

His voice was liquid, beautiful and full of depth, and Faith tilted back her head and stared up into the night, waiting for the sun. Not knowing was driving them crazy, but in it she found some kind of peace.

And still the music surrounded her and the earth shook on.


End file.
